VICTORY VILLA - DAWS HEATH

49 Western Road

This delightful cottage is over 153 years old and records show the house name was Victory Villa. Over the past few years, although occupied, the cottage has been the cause of some local concern as it appeared to be neglected. The property runs along the walk way between Western Road and Daws Heath Road by the Evangelical Church and the graveyard of the Peculiar People movement. However, in mid 2017 a local developer, working with Brown & Brand, the local estate agents, bought this property and returned it to its former glory and brought it back to life. It is now fully restored and on the market in excess of £350,000.
However, it would be good to hear of peoples’ memories of this property and why it was called Victory Villa.

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  • I’ve been looking at old documents that belonged to my Great Grand Parents. The house was sold in 1928 Victory Villa., for £350. Their names were Austen and Ada Buss and they both died there.

    By Jacqueline Walpole (29/12/2023)
  • My nan and grandad, Mr and Mrs R Tottman, lived here in the 1940s – 60s. My parents lived with them for a while after they married in 1947. I remember the bath that was in the kitchen with a board on top to act as a work surface; and the outside toilet. The stairs were very steep. There was a farm next door and the Peculiar Peoples Church and an old cottage where Jessie (a recluse) lived on the other side.

    By Susan Patricia Vernon née Tottman (17/12/2018)
  • My mother – Ruth Chestney (nee Adams) and who still lives in Hadleigh – was born in Victory Villa in 1932 and lived there until she was 13. The house had previously been occupied by her maternal grandparents, Mr & Mrs Charles Shelley. In fact, Charles died in the house in about 1934. She remembers there was a very deep well right outside the back door, which her father had filled in. The garden had a very large apple tree, and many other fruit bushes. During the war there was an Anderson shelter, and her brother (Ken) kept ducks on a small pond he dug towards the bottom of the garden.

    Of course, the brick built chapel was next door.

    The house looks no different now than it did back then, except that there used to be a window in the front bedroom overlooking the road towards Hadleigh. And it was bare brick in those days, not rendered as it is now.

    The house had a scullery, a living room and a front room. Two bedrooms upstairs. And an outside toilet, next to the scullery.

    By Ross Chestney (10/02/2018)

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